The all girl Roberto Clemente Commemoration student representatives are pictured here at the Dianamica Radio Station to promote the RCC event at the Dunkin Donuts Stadium. Nairoby Hiraldo, Samantha Diaz, Zaida Mercado, Carla Fernandez, and Jhoanely Torres, carried on the Roberto Clemente Commemoration tradition, along with their mentor and leader Alex Mercado.
Here are some favorite quotes from seniors over the years, and some of the BEST emails I have received since this project started in 2014.
"This left an imprint on my life...advice to next year's class - start in the summer and find something you like and put your heart into it. " "I was the one stopping myself from reaching my full potential ...I wanted this to be more than a project to me."
"Happy New Year! Hope you had a good vacation!! I forgot to tell you, last Saturday my mentor and I tried my capstone project on middle school kids into freshmen mostly ages 12-15. We figured since any ages past 15 had a well enough idea about Bosnian Culture and what happened with the War, it would be more beneficial talking to them about it. It was actually so shocking that these middle schoolers were almost clueless on why we are here in America. Many of them were born here and just grew up with this lifestyle. My mentor helped me better explain the reasoning behind the war and our journey here. It was so nice just to see these kids so interested, learned a big part of why we are in this country. Just sharing :) "
"I apologize for emailing you this late but i just wanted to update you on my progress with the adult literacy classes. I recently developed a schedule which allows me to have small groups of people to attend to during the blocks. What is most interesting is the final block of the day i am teaching a computer class on how to use Microsoft office, emails, etc. I started teaching yesterday but, i realized that creating a manual with assist me better. My question for you is should i put the manual in my PowerPoint when i do my exhibition."
"This has been a journey for me but I have grown not only as a student but as a man through this process. I'm looking forward to making sure that our student body knows every single word to our SMSA school song. I've became extremely passionate about my project and I'm happy that I have you and everyone supporting me to push me."
“The apartment had cracked windows and they were on the second floor. The mother hugged me and gave me her baby to hold while she figured out how to open her door, the other two children were hugging me and trying to play with me. When we walked into the house the mother wouldn’t stop crying, the translator translated to me how she told him that she had lost everyone in her family and now that there is people helping them she feels like she has a family again, I started crying and it hurt me so much to know that my parents had to go through and where I am now. I saw the father sit down and grab his head and tears wouldn’t stop. I helped them unpack and i played with the children, the women explained that she had another baby back in Syria who wasn’t able to make it, she settled here. It was time for me to go home and say goodbye, I gave everyone hugs and I thought to myself I finally figured out my capstone idea. I want to help this family, I want to help this family get fully settled, help them learn English, baby sit their kids and do activities with their kids and other children so they don’t feel like outsiders because coming from a person who was once in their shoes I know how hard it is to adapt to a place where you don’t know the language or anything.”
"Who would of known that my high school senior project would prepare me for exactly what I'd be doing 4 months after I graduate. Last year at this time, doing what I'd be doing now was just a dream that I thought I wouldn't accomplish for at least 3-5 more years... Anyway I just wanted to share and thank you again for that letter!"
"One of the greatest things about this project is that I’m able to see the difference the difference that I’m making with the kids. Johnny and Jen are my students, they only recently joined our church about a month ago and it’s been a blessing because I have gotten to known them better. At first it seems like this project for me was going nowhere because I was having a difficult time getting students and all of the sudden these kids show up. They surprise me, every time we get together to continue on our journey. To me it seems like it was just yesterday that we first met. I still remember the difficulty that I was having talking to them as we were getting started. I didn’t really know how to start or how to appropriately paraphrase some of the music theories. But, today was just amazing, I still can’t forget the faces that they were making as they strum some of the chords that I taught them. It’s just amazing seen someone new start playing because you are able to see how they go from playing whatever they can to simply just playing a single chord. Over the course of these lessons I have been giving them homework in a sense and that is to practice as much as they can. At first I felt like they were not practicing because everything that I was teaching them, they weren’t remembering. This made me feel sad in a way because all I want is for them to learn something new. It also made me think a lot about my teachers, I wonder how they feel when I don’t learn what they are teaching me."